Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Inheritance
by DayDreamer9
Summary: When a story is told about a series of events, you expect that that's all there to it...but what if you were wrong?
1. Chapter 1

_I don't own Sailor Moon._

 _For two dear friends on mine._

 _ **Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Inheritance**_

 **Chapter 1 – Do You Dare?**

Elaine 'Ellie' Channary had always thought of herself as a straight-laced kind of girl; bad habits kept to a minimum (drumming your fingers wasn't a crime, after all), grades a steady line of Bs with the occasional A (mostly in Literature), and, best of all, her parents were heavily into charity work (especially her mother).

That Ellie had chosen to follow in her mother's footsteps before she had graduated the 4th Grade made up for a lot of her faults (finger-drumming aside, she tended to have no concept of time and let's not get started on her Math skills).

So, it stood to reason, that the mocha-skinned High School Freshman would be a shining pillar of good etiquette and ethics among her peers, especially her unruly homeroom. Having grown up with a good chunk of the student body helped, what with Pinion Bay being the small town that it was, and Ellie never went anywhere without her besties.

"Ells, seriously, what were you on when you took this dare?"

So of **course** she hauled them with her to Deadman's Point after school to keep her company.

"I was trying to prove a point," Ellie explained, making her way down the bumpy incline, trying not to facefault into a rock.

"And that point was that you're crazy?"

"No, that this whole _curse_ business is baloney."

Not too far behind her, Inaya Brenton rolled her eyes as she scooted carefully down the patchwork hybrid of hillside and giant rock garden, wondering for the eleventh time since this whole business started why she'd agreed to this bullshit.

"Why'd I agree to this bullshit?"

"You didn't have to come, Innie," now it was Ellie's turn to roll her eyes, setting one foot down safely onto solid ground, then the other, "I didn't twist your arm-"

"You guilt-tripped us **both** and you know it."

"Did not."

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Neri, tell her she guilted us!"

"Um..."

"No, no I did not," Ellie glared at Inaya as she hopped down onto solid ground, locking her coffee-colored eyes with her friend's dark ones, "I was perfectly fine with going alone."

"Then why did you spend ten minutes going into detail about how **scary** this whole _death march_ was gonna be?"

"A _ha_ , so **that's** what this is all about," grinning in triumph, Ellie jabbed an (exaggerated) accusing finger at Inaya, "you believe in this _curse_ stuff too! I **knew** I didn't twist your arms-"

" _No_ , no I **don't**!" Inaya felt all the blood rising to her face as her childhood friend stepped closer to her last nerve, "you **totally** guilted me into this."

"Uh...technically all she told us was that she was going to Deadman's Point and that she'd see us tomorrow," from behind Inaya, a shorter girl with dark brown hair finally made her way down to the bottom, being extra careful not to collide with her more hot-tempered friend.

Biting back a groan as Ellie's grin got even bigger, Inaya glared over her shoulder as Nerina 'Neri' Dillon scooted out from behind her, big blue eyes shying away from her friends'.

"Which sounds like a final farewell!"

"I...don't think she meant it like that-"

"UGH!" throwing her arms up in the air, Inaya marched away from both girls, cheeks piping hot, "I **knew** you'd take her side."

Neri's blue eyes went wide, "No, I-"

"Take it easy, Sweets," Ellie put a hand on the girl's shoulder, her grin morphing into a reassuring smile, "she's just being melodramatic. As _usual_."

Calming down a bit, Neri gave a meek nod and followed after Ellie when she turned and went to catch up with Inaya as she stomped her way through the tall grass, scaring off whatever snakes or creepy crawlies lay in wait with just her Aura of PO'ed alone.

Deadman's Point had been the centerpiece of many an urban legend in Pinion Bay since way before Ellie was even born, ranging from ghosts to zombies, one story even claiming it as an inland Bermuda Triangle. But the most popular and wide-spread rumor (and that's all this stuff was to Ellie) was of a deadly curse that made the whole chunk of land a deathtrap to those who stepped foot inside its perimeter.

Well, Ellie and her friends had stepped with that foot, granted Inaya complained the whole way and it took a good ten minutes to convince Neri that she didn't have to text up her Last Will and Testament (no, for real, she had a goodbye letter halfway written on her phone), but they were here, in one of the few areas of Pinion Bay that hadn't been marked for development.

That the adults gave this place a wide berth only served to reinforce the legend more, not that Ellie paid it any mind from the get-go.

Through the tall grass they marched, Neri sticking so close to Ellie, she could be piggybacking, and soon, their destination came into sight a good five minutes later, embedded in the side of the bay's cliffside. At which point Inaya came to a halt, knuckles going white as her fists clenched even harder.

"Here we are," she said, quietly, staring at the cave before her.

It wasn't a tall, gaping, ominous cave like the kind you'd see in horror movies: it looked ready to collapse at any moment, small and somewhat hunched over. The stone ridge looked to be tall enough to allow someone entry, but they'd have to slouch to do it. Historically, it was the remnants of a mine that turned out to be bone dry of any sort of mineral ore and was thus abandoned, but by urban folklore standards, it was the epicenter of the so-called _curse_.

"Jeez, could this thing look anymore biohazard?" Ellie muttered, coming to a stop beside Inaya, Neri hiding behind the two of them as they gazed at the scrunched up cavern mouth, "who needs a curse when you look ready to implode?"

"Does...that mean we're not going in?" Neri sounded neither hopeful or scared.

"Oh **I'm** definitely going in," Ellie shook her head with a sigh, fishing around in her jean's pocket, "stupid as it is, I gave my word." She looked at her two friends, sharply. "You two **don't** have to come in with me. If this thing collapses, I **don't** want either one of you to get crushed. You came with me this far, I'm not holding you to-"

"Ellie, shut up," Inaya frowned, but continued to stand beside her friend, "I'm not ditching you **now** , after your crazy ass dragged us this close to death."

"That's not funny-"

"Neri, if you-"

"I'm going in too," though her voice still sounded neutral, neither girl could deny that they heard a strange sort of _eagerness_ in it, "don't worry about it, Ellie." She flashed her friend a simple smile.

For a good ten seconds, Ellie looked at them both – Inaya standing firm and resolute, Neri fidgeting from one foot to the other – and thought about what she was about to do. They weren't going to leave her, not now, even after her ongoing argument with Inaya the whole way over here. She'd been teasing, of course, but now that she got a good look at what they were supposed to enter, she wondered if she really **had** , somehow, guilt-tripped them into coming with her.

 _Me and my big mouth,_ she thought, cell phone now gripped tightly in one hand, staring at the crumbling cave with a sense of foreboding, _of all the things to get riled up over..._

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The cave didn't really look all that bad on the inside, at least compared to its exterior appearance, which Ellie found to be equal parts a relief and strange.

She still had to hunch over when she entered the cave, hitting record on her phone and praying that the light on her keychain was enough to light the way, but as cramped as it was (and already her neck was developing a kink in it), it didn't look like something that would fall on top of her head if she so much as sneezed. This was reassuring, true, but Ellie had been expecting to be walking into something dangerous and the expectation to see one thing only to witness something entirely different was in full effect seven minutes into the trek.

 _What exactly_ were _you expecting_? she asked herself with a scrunched up frown, _Count Dracula's vacation spot? This is so stupid-  
_

"At least we can breathe in here," she heard Neri mumble from behind her; Neri's voice was naturally soft, but Ellie had been hearing her voice since they were both nine and so had learned to key into its volume, "I don't smell any kind of underground gas."

Ellie hadn't thought of **that**. Super.

"Isn't that shit supposed to be odorless?" Inaya's voice bounced off the walls nicely, which meant that the cave was still a cave, despite its best impression of a bellybutton.

"Some gases are, yes, but we would have been feeling the effects a lot sooner if that were the case."

"How do you know **that**? We could still croak within the hour!"

"Hey, don't knock it," Ellie raised her voice enough for it to echo too, "a lucky break's a lucky break. Don't jinx it."

"Can we turn back, now?" seven minutes of walking in a straight, hunched line in a supposedly _cursed_ cave hadn't done wonders for Inaya's patience.

"Carlson said to go straight to the back, so that's where I'm going," shining the light this way and that, checking for any signs of a potential cave-in, Ellie checked her phone's battery life. Having left it on all throughout the schoolday, it was at 50%. She hoped Neri's phone was better off. "If you want to turn back, though, I'm not twisting your-"

"Ellie, once again, shut up."

Rolling her eyes, Ellie turned back to the front of the cave, doing her best not to lead them all into a bottomless pit.

"You know what's strange?" Neri spoke up, sounding very curious, "this is supposed to be an old mine, but I don't see **any** leftover equipment."

That grabbed Ellie's attention back.

"Wasn't that over a hundred years ago or something?" Inaya paid as much attention to History as she did her mother's ranting, "it all probably rotted away."

"Not likely," despite still looking ahead in near darkness, Ellie could tell that Neri was shaking her head, "unless it's organic, things don't rot underground. The wooden parts, yeah, they'd probably rot. But there'd still be shovel-heads, pickax-heads, metal carts-"

"They probably took it all with them," Ellie grabbed for the other, _logical_ option, "you said the town abandoned the mine, right?"

"That's what the old newspaper said," because of **course** Neri had to know more about where they were going, dare or no dare, _curse_ or no curse, Neri was someone who needed all the facts before making a decision. Plus, she'd insisted that it would help Ellie make the right choice (and right after she made it, Inaya forbid the shorter girl from using Google again for a whole week). "But...Ellie...it wasn't in an organized manner."

"What do you mean _organized manner_? You abandon someplace, you pack up and leave-"

"No, they literally dropped what they were doing and left," Neri's response made the hair on the back of Ellie's neck stand on end, "when the miners got back to town, they were all white as sheets and refused to go back."

"Yeah, I read that part," Ellie then voiced aloud what she had told herself after reading the article, "but it also didn't say **why** they left. It could have been a bear or something; bears were still around these parts back in the day, right?"

Neri was silent for a moment, leaving plenty of time for Inaya to speak.

" _'Back in the day_ '?"

"Oh hush. You know what I mean."

"Yes, brown bears would come here during their mating season," Neri finally replied, "but all bears, even the big grizzlies, often stay away from humans."

"Never stopped them before," Ellie flashed her keychain light up for another sweep...and froze.

"That's only if—oof!" Neri's nose poked Ellie right between the shoulder blades.

"Hey!" Inaya, meanwhile, felt the back of Neri's head bump into her chest, "why'd we stop?"

"Is...did we reach the end of the cave?" Neri's voice was muffled due to the close proximity of Ellie's blouse.

The keychain light stayed trained on the wall in front of them, revealing a surface **way** too smooth to be natural. Neri had to look over Ellie's shoulder, but there it was, and engraved upon it was a circle of symbols, all evenly spaced from one another (at least five inches worth), taking up a majority of the wall. At the very center of this circle, something very bright glinted beautifully in the light of Ellie's mini-light...

"Holy..." Inaya's voice tapered off into a small grasp before she could complete her thought, eyes locked on the sight.

No sound came from Neri while Ellie traced the entirety of the circle before going back to the glint in the center. As it was, she – technically all three of them – were standing a mere foot and a half away from the polished wall and they **still** found it difficult to process what they were seeing.

"This is..." Neri tried to find her voice, which had gone softer than its usual pitch, "...those-"

"The fuck?" Inaya picked her jaw up off the floor, "what the hell were those miner-people **doing** down here? What the fuck is all that gibberish?"

"But...but that's not gibberish! That's-"

"It's a circle of lumpy circles and lines, Ner. It's gibberish."

"No!"

"Unless...oh _shit_. This is all that witchcraft stuff they used to go on about way back when, wasn't it?"

"' _Way back'_...what?"

" **Crap!** " Inaya kicked at the floor, dislodging a rock that nearly collided with the wall, "then there **is** a _curse_! Crap crap crap **crap** , we just walked up to the remains of some huge, old-fashioned black magic ritual!"

Neri opened her mouth to object-

"What's that thing in the middle?"

Both girls turned back to Ellie, who hadn't moved her light away from the center of the circle; she was leaning forwards a little and squinting, trying to make sense of what she was looking at.

"It's so... _bright_."

"It...it could be some kind of quartz crystal," Neri offered, distracted from Inaya for a moment, "they're common in cave systems-"

"It's the only thing that's _bright_ in this entire place, though" indeed, her light had fallen on no other shiny stone. That's what it had to be: a shiny, _clear_ stone...

"And why is it in the middle of all those voodoo symbols?" Inaya tried **very** hard to keep her voice from cracking, even as a chill went down her spine at the many thoughts running through her head of what might have happened in this cave right then and there, "that's...that's not some freaky occult thing, is it?"

"Those are **not** _voodoo symbols!_ " Neri turned back to Inaya, catching a glint of her eyes in the reflected mini-light glare, "they're-"

"Ellie?" Inaya's eyes suddenly went dinner plate round, which made Neri look back at their fearless leader, "Ellie, _what the hell are you doing?_ "

As the other two had argued, Ellie had never looked away from the clear stone embedded in the wall, curiosity growing stronger the more she stared at it. A perfectly circular, clear stone that shined in the light nestled dead in the center of a circle of symbols? No way in hell was that a natural phenomenon.

 _It feels..._ alive _...almost,_ she didn't say this aloud or Inaya would **really** flip her shit, but it only made Ellie want to know more about the sight before her.

She hadn't realized that she'd taken a step forward, then another, grabbing her friend's attention right as she let go of her keychain light, letting it dangle from her phone so that she could reach out to the clear stone with her now free hand. Even in the dark, it seemed to shine; how the hell had she not seen it earlier?

"Ellie-"

Mocha fingertips brushed against the stone and then the entire cave seemed to explode with light.

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 _Be sure to leave a review if you liked what you read. Don't be afraid to fave, either. This is gonna be quite a ride "smirks"_


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't own Sailor Moon._

 _Big thanks to_ **Ashen Author** _for idea-bouncing and_ **FanofMostEverything** _for beta/proof-reading this chapter. It's become all the more better with your brilliance._

 _ **Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Inheritance**_

 **Chapter 2 – Wake-Up Call**

The first coherent thought that came together in the mind of Eleanor 'Ellie' Channary was, _Ugh, I feel like shit._

The second coherent thought came five seconds later, when the rest of her senses came back online, _Uuuuhn, I didn't sleep in my jeans again, did I?_

The third coherent thought came when she finally, reluctantly, opened her eyes to see the pale ceiling of her room staring back at her, _…...Wait. That's my ceiling._

Ellie's room portrayed the personality of someone who loved copious amounts of sugar: light pink walls against a paler pink ceiling, a faded pink carpet that had seen much better times in the house's first ten years, a wooden desk painted a grayish-pink in the far left corner across from a comfy bed with a (you guessed it) pink, flower printed comforter. Of course, it had been designed when Ellie was still in Kindergarten, thus one could be forgiven for not believing the occupant has just entered high school.

To the desk's right, two large bookshelves held an assortment of stuffed animals, from Beanie Babies to My Little Ponies of various generations to a big white Teddy Bear named Vanilla Ice, and a smaller bookcase beside them sported a healthy collection of books, mostly fantasy and romance, but with a good chunk of manga mixed in. They had been later additions, purchased in tandem with Ellie's interests, which remained a steady constant, save for that one year in the 3rd Grade.

On the right hand side of her bed, her closet was built into the wall, accessible via a sliding mirror door that her father had made as an experiment (and thus very proud of himself for the success). On the left hand side, her nightstand, complete with a plain-looking lamp, a Minnie Mouse alarm clock (a birthday present from her Grandmother that she refused to replace), a modest jewelry box, and a Kleenex box.

Her backpack lay discarded at the foot of her bed and her laptop sat offline atop her desk, where an assortment of pens, pencils, and notebooks were stacked.

Normalcy.

The fourth coherent thought, _Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa-  
_

Coherent might have been a bit much.

Her impending mental meltdown would have continued had she not moved her head towards her alarm clock, spotting the time in crystal clear numbers—6:01 AM.

 _What._

AM. A. M.

 _What?_

It had been 4:34 PM the last time she'd checked the time on her cell phone.

PM. P. M.

 _WHAT?_

Carlson's stupid face, his stupid dare. Her friends – Neri, Inaya, where were they?! – coming with her. Deadman's Point. The cave. The circle. The-

Ellie bolted upright, an impressive feat of strength and agility that didn't suit a girl who currently had a C- in Physical Fitness.

"What the hell?" she gasped to the open air; the blue light of predawn poked its way out from under her blinds, filling her room with an eerie glow, "what the hell, what the hell...Holy Bananas, was all that a dream?"

She looked down at herself; even in the faint blue light, she could see the familiar blouse and jean combo that she'd worn yesterday. She felt the top of her head; her scrunchies were still there, holding up two bunches of ebony hair. She clutched those bunches tightly as she noticed that her sneakers had been discarded and a quick – borderline frantic – look around showed that they were on the ground by her nightstand.

They were still covered in dirt.

So was her backpack.

The same backpack that she'd left by the old Rowan stump atop the incline at Deadman's Point.

"Oh my God."

She'd been at Deadman's Point.

She'd been at the cave. She'd been **in** the cave.

The so-called _cursed_ cave alongside her two best friends.

In the **afternoon** , after school.

"Oh my sweet God."

How on God's Green Earth did she go from inside a cave in the afternoon to back in her house, a good three miles away from Deadman's Point, in her room, at **six** in the **AM**?

"What just-"

The enchanting voice of Adele wafted through the air and grabbed her attention before she could contemplate her insanity further. Snapping her head in the direction of the ringtone, Ellie nearly fell off her rumpled up bed as she dove for the nightstand, or, more specifically, the cell phone sitting innocently between her clock and tissue box.

She knew who was calling by ringtone alone, but she still checked the name.

 _Inaya._

She noticed the battery icon in the upper corner. The **full** battery icon in the upper corner.

100% charged.

 _What the heck?_

Ellie fumbled to answer the phone before her sister woke up nextdoor, keychain dangling noisily below as she finally answered before Adele hit the high notes.

"Ellie, _**what the fuck?!**_ "

Speaking of...

"Innie-"

" **What** the **fuck** _**did you do?!**_ " her bestie continued as Ellie fumbled again to lower the volume before her _brother_ heard from down the hall, "oh God, I **knew** we shouldn't have gone! What did you _**do**_?!"

"Innie, calm dow-"

"I'm in my **room** , Ellie. In my **fucking room** , at fucking **six AM** , after being stuck inside a cramped fucking **cave** with my lunatic friend not **two fucking minutes ago**. In the **afternoon**. Do **not** tell me to calm down Ellie!"

She sounded freaked. Which was a good thing, because Ellie **felt** freaked. They could therefore freak out together.

"So it wasn't a dream," Ellie didn't mean to say it out loud, but she'd just woken up from the biggest shock in her short life and thus wasn't computing the dos and don'ts of mind-to-mouth properly.

Inaya didn't say anything for a good fifteen seconds after she said that, which gave Ellie time to get control of her pulse as best she could, wondering if her friend had hung up. She got her answer soon after she managed to get her heart out of her ears.

"Ellie, I'm serious. What _**happened?**_ "

Taking a deep breath, "I don't know."

Silence for another five seconds. Ellie swallowed her heartbeat back into her chest.

"We were in a cave," she finally said, shifting into a more comfortable position, phone held gently to her ear, "the one at Deadman's Point. We reached the end, there was a circle, a **stone** -"

"You touched it," Inaya interrupted, not sounding any calmer than she had when she first spoke, "you touched it and then everything exploded and... and... Ellie, **why** the hell did you touch it? What did you **do?** "

"I..." why **had** she touched it? She remembered the curiosity, the allure, the warmth it radiated as her fingers brushed its surface- "I don't know. I just... it didn't look dangerous..."

Inaya groaned from the other end of the phone and Ellie bit her lip, glancing at her bedroom door; almost closed, but left open just a crack. A telltale sign of her mother's presence.

"Innie, how did we get home?" the thought was so sudden, so confusing, it made her heart leap back up her throat, "we were in a cave three miles East of school grounds. How the heck did we get back home **without** our parents raising a fuss?"

She wouldn't have been left alone to sleep peacefully in her room, that was for sure.

The silence came back and it was longer this time, which only served to freak Ellie out further. Her free hand clutched the comforter until her knuckles turned white.

"Ellie, are you freaking the fuck out too?" The last time Ellie had heard Inaya sound so vulnerable was the first day they'd met. The nostalgia brought with it a wave of protectiveness and anger.

"I am," she answered, truthfully, getting to her feet, "you're not alone in this, Innie, so please, calm down. This freaky stuff happened to all of us. You, me, Ner-" Ellie's eyes widened. " **Neri!** "

If a rustle from beyond the wall nextdoor was heard, Ellie didn't really pay it any mind, pulling her phone back so that she could see the interface and fumbled for a third time to initiate a group call. She could hear Inaya flipping out further as she got Neri's number, not noticing anything else out of the ordinary about her phone from the wallpaper and icons.

How the hell did it get charged without its charger? Did her mother do that? Did she take off her shoes too?

The questions never seemed to end.

Putting the phone back to her ear, Ellie listened to the rings and nearly ripped a hole in her comforter with her free hand in her impatience, hoping and praying that Neri was alright. She could hear Inaya muttering a mantra under her breath on the other end (if saying 'fuck' over and over again counted as a mantra) and continued to listen until someone picked up on the fifth ring.

"Neri? Neri, hon, are you okay?"

Five seconds of silence. "Ellie...is Inaya on too?"

"I'm here, Ner," Inaya sounded only slightly calmer than she had been when she first picked up, "are you okay?"

And, once again, there was silence. Save for more rustling from the room nextdoor.

"We were at Deadman's Point," Neri finally found her voice, eerily neutral, "it was sometime after four...and we were in the cave, right?"

"Yeah Sweets, we were," Ellie bit her lip, "that's the last thing we remember-"

" **You** touching the voodoo rock was the last thing **I** remember," Inaya cut in, "that's when everything went fucking screwy!"

Rolling her eyes, Ellie figured that she should feel relieved that Inaya was getting back to her old snippy self, but given the circumstances, she really just wanted some answers. Problem was, all they had right now were questions.

"It **wasn't** a voodoo rock," the strange crystal was one such question and yet, for some strange reason, Ellie didn't feel that it was malevolent.

"That whole circle thing was one big black magic ritual from way back whenever and **you** _ **had**_ to touch the voodoo rock," Inaya continued her panic-fueled rant, "it was turned off, you turned it back on, simple as that."

"I don't think that's how it works..."

"It... it wasn't _voodoo_... or black magic... at least, I don't think it was," Neri's voice sounded a bit firmer than it had been when she first picked up, which was a good thing, but she still didn't sound back to her usual pitch, "those symbols... I know those symbols-"

" **You** know **witchcraft**?"

"Innie, for real?"

"They're **not** witchcraft," Neri sounded very matter-of-fact for being so spooked, "they're astrology."

No one was there to witness Ellie do a double-take to her phone, staring at the screen of her Samsung as though it'd just turned into a Nokia.

 _Astrology?_

"...What?" Inaya asked, clearly thinking that Neri was still half-asleep.

"The circle in the cave... those symbols were astrological symbols," Neri continued, "I recognized them from an old book report I did in the 6th Grade-"

"You remember something from a homework assignment you did **two years** ago?" Inaya interjected, incredulous.

"Well, ah, it was an interesting subject and I still have the book," came the meek justification, "it's... I actually checked it after I woke up, just to be sure... well, after I cr—um, got myself under control..."

Ellie had known this girl for five years, from quirks to hobbies, thus she didn't question that Neri owned a book of space-based science. What she **did** do, however, was stop her before she could push away her needs.

"Sweets, it's us. You don't have to hide anything," she spoke gently, "you have the right to freak out when things go bananas; I did it, Inaya did it."

"I almost started crying too, Neri," Inaya's tone switched to a softer setting, something that she only did for the two of them, "it's perfectly normal to lose your shit over something like this."

There was a quiet pause on the other end, then a small sniff, "I just... I— **all** of us lost **fourteen hours** and... and I just-"

"We know, hon, we know," Ellie took a deep breath herself and looked back at her clock, "look, **none** of this makes **any** kind of sense. Something happened in that cave. I don't know what and I don't know **why** it happened-"

"Voodoo," Inaya just didn't seem ready to let it go.

"-but I want answers," Ellie reached over to her lamp and squinted her eyes in preparation as she turned it on, banishing the predawn blue and flooding her room with light, "Inaya, clean yourself up. Neri, stay put and, if you need it, have a good cry, because we'll coming over to-"

"Ellie?"

That voice didn't come from the phone.

Looking up and at the doorway like a deer caught in headlights, Ellie watched as her big sister entered a step into her room, baggy pajamas doing a great job at hiding her model-like physique.

"You're up," Anisa 'Ann' Channary had the benefit of having the most original name among her siblings, named after neither a favorite aunt or father-in-law, not that Ellie complained about it (her _brother_ , on the other hand...), "Holy Cow, you **finally** woke up."

Trying to remain as composed as she could under the circumstances, Ellie took another deep breath and muttered a quiet "Hang on" into the phone before she lowered it face-down onto the bed, eyes still on her sister, who entered her room, closing the door quietly behind her.

"Morning, Ann," Ellie managed to keep her voice neutral, trying to read her sister's expression as she approached. How was she going to handle this? Heck, how was she even going to **explain** it?

"What the heck did you **eat** yesterday?"

... _What?_

"Dad actually thought you were **drunk** ," Ann sat on the side of her bed, studying her little sister's face for telltale signs of teenage hijinks, "Mom came in here to wake you up for dinner and you just **slept through** it; she tried to shake you awake, she took your shoes off... she was ready to call an ambulance, but you were still breathing, and I checked your pulse-"

"I'm not drunk," was the first thing out of Ellie's mouth. Her parents had been freaking out too? Not good. _**So**_ not good.

"Better get ready to tell that to Dad," Ann shook her head, "I knew you wouldn't do something that dumb, even if you were curious." She looked back at Ellie, eyes full of concern. "You didn't have a fever, so you weren't sick, and so I managed to convince Mom that you probably were sleeping off a snack or something. Y'know, the usual."

The usual? Not even close.

Ellie's mind scrounged up the closest thing to a probable explanation, "I... had something spicy over at Innie's house." It helped that Inaya's Mom liked to go crazy in the kitchen. "I guess it didn't agree with me..."

"Apparently," Ann had raised an eyebrow, but she otherwise looked satisfied with the explanation, "still, Dad's gonna have questions, so be prepared for the third degree."

Sighing with relief would have been a dead giveaway that something was wrong, so Ellie kept it in and glanced up at her ceiling fan as nonchalantly as she could.

"Did Inaya do that to your phone?"

What.

Ellie's head snapped down so fast, she was pretty sure she'd have whiplash later, looking down at her cell phone. It'd been dark before and she'd only paid attention to the screen (and her friends, by extension), she hadn't bothered to look at the casing.

A rich magenta casing with a silver crescent moon right in the middle, the curved part facing the bottom while the two points reached for the top.

The more she stared at it, the more she realized how familiar it looked: it had been the symbol at the very top of the circle on the wall at the end of the cave.

Her heart pounded in her ears once again, but Ellie schooled her expression as best she could when she finally turned back around.

"...Yes," she sounded almost robotic in an effort not to let her freakout show, "yes, she did."

To her massive relief, Ann just smiled, "Relax. I think it's pretty. Doesn't make up for you spooking us out yesterday, though."

Her head swimming with more questions, Ellie nodded her head, and swallowed. " **Really** sorry about that, Ann."

"It's okay," Ann proved her rank of elder sibling by reaching up and rustling her little's sister's hair, almost dislodging the scrunchies, "you're awake, so everything's back to normal. And you don't need to convince **me** that you're clean. Just try not to eat any more spicy foods and Mom will probably be okay too."

Everything was **not** okay. Not by a long shot.

If Ellie didn't want answers before, she **definitely** did now.

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Red-orange eyes slowly opened to the sunlight long since forgotten in the abyss of sleep.

A sharp, intelligent mind produced thoughts and feelings with every second it regained awareness.

Shapes and color came into focus. Muscles reconnected with nerves and synapses. A tail twitched to life.

 _I am...awake?_

Disorientation was normal when hibernation ended, but what she had a hard time understanding was **why** she had awoken.

 _Where...I don't under-_

"Luna?"

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 _Be sure to leave a review if you liked what you read. Don't be afraid to fave, either._

 _Just to let you all know, things will take time to come together in this story, though I wouldn't call it_ slow _, per se. Just be patient and you'll see some Sailor Senshi action sooner than you think "winks"_


	3. Chapter 3

_I don't own Sailor Moon.  
_

 _I'm working on trying to make some corrections to my earlier chapters as of this upload, though it may take a while. All I will say for now is that the pacing may be slow, but this **is** a Sailor Moon fic, rest assured._

 _ **Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Inheritance**_

 **Chapter 3 – Not a Clue?**

"This is bullshit."

Inaya walked away from the bus stop at an hour **far** too early in the morning on a Friday for a girl her age to be up, but she couldn't have been able to go back to sleep if she tried.

She'd been asleep for **fourteen hours** and was currently wired as fuck.

"This is bullshit."

Between her and Ellie, her house was farther from Neri's, which meant she had to dig out her bus pass and try to act as normal as possible on her way to the nearest stop, not too mention the whole ride over, where she had to share the same moving space with two college-aged kids and an old dude who looked both drunk and high. She'd woken up in her own bed, in her own room, in her own house – not the hospital that was practically at the very border of the town itself – so she assumed that her parents weren't as wigged out as Ellie's had been, left a quick note, and took off.

"This is bullshit."

She'd worry about the consequences later.

She wanted some fucking answers, even if it meant diving nose-first into some crazy, astronomiwhatsit-occult shit. If she **was** _cursed,_ she wanted to know what she'd been cursed **with**.

"This is bullshit," Inaya had not stopped reciting her anti-insanity mantra since she'd gotten off the phone, needing to affirm that she was awake and that this wasn't some cave-gas-induced hallucination. She even pinched herself every so often to double-check. "This is bullshit and so help me if this is a prank, I will **punt** somebody-"

Neri's house came into view along a pleasant, unassuming row of normal-looking houses; her neighborhood was pretty friendly, if packed a little close together, but Neri's family didn't seem to mind. Well, except for her sister, but **everything** bothered Neri's sister.

The sun had just barely poked its head out above the horizon when Inaya made her way up the driveway, side-stepping the Dillon Family Workvan (owned by one Mr. Ethan Dillon), and beelined for the door, converting her mantra into a mental one as she readied the excuse she'd made during the ride here.

 _Science project, science project, oh dear God, this is bullshit,_ biting her lip a bit too hard, Inaya nonetheless rang the doorbell, trying to look as casual as possible.

For a couple seconds, she was pretty sure she'd have to ring it a couple more times until someone woke up, but then she heard very audible scampering from the other side of the door, giving her all the warning she could before said door opened and revealed a very frazzled Neri.

"Oh thank God it's you," Inaya breathed with relief, knowing full well that she'd choke if it'd been either Dillon parents, "Ner, what-"

"Nerina? Is that your other friend?"

 _Crap,_ it took a lot of control not to say that out loud, but Neri gently grabbing her arm and tugging her inside helped to both distract and ground Inaya, "Ah, h-hello Mrs. Dillon."

The middle-aged woman stood at the end of the foyer, behind Neri, wearing a drab-looking housecoat and a concerned expression all overprotective parents wore when their youngest child was having friends over. Nevermind that she knew them since **Grade School**...

"Good morning, Inaya," Mrs. Millicent 'Millie' Dillon was polite to everybody, always smiled and greeted her guests in a friendly manner, but you could tell by her eyes what she was really feeling at all times, something that Inaya had noticed by her second visit, "my, it's **really** early for you two to be over..."

 _Two_. That meant- "Oh, uh, so I guess Ellie beat me here?"

"By five minutes," Mrs. Dillon walked closer as Neri shut the door, "what exactly did you all **do** yesterday?"

Resisting the urge to look over at Neri, Inaya grasped for her rehearsed excuse minus the mantra, "Science project."

"We... we just wanted to be sure it was perfect," Neri turned to face her mother, big blue eyes looking as innocent as ever, practically her default look, "the due date is...uh...well I **think** it's today."

 _Smooth, Ner,_ Inaya tried not to roll her eyes and went to bail her friend out, "Friday is always D-Day at school, at least when it comes to deadlines."

Mrs. Dillon didn't look totally sold on this, but she didn't trounce on it either, "Still... this early? You're lucky your father is a heavy sleeper, Nerina. He'd have questions."

 _Like_ you _don't?_ Inaya now chanced a look at Neri and saw the shorter girl blush before reaching up to tug at Inaya's arm again.

"I know, Mom... I-"

"I guess it's alright, I'm just curious is all," Mrs. Dillon tried to keep her ' _Courteous Hostess_ ' act going as she succumbed to a yarn, "Neri was asleep in her room when her father got home. She didn't even come to dinner. We thought she was sick."

So they hadn't questioned **when** she got home...

"I told you Mom, I... I missed the bus," Neri tugged harder, which Inaya took to mean that she was close to blowing their cover; Neri couldn't lie for a million dollars, hence her using the excuses Ellie made for her on the phone, "and... and I forgot my phone, so I... I had to walk all the way home."

"Gosh, Ner, you should've asked me for a ride," Inaya, meanwhile, had no problem with coming up with a fib on the spot. A tried and true art form that she'd been trying to pass on to her bestie. "My Mom and I would've taken you."

Lie Neri could not, but she **could** take a hint, "Oh! W-well, I... I didn't want to inconvenience you-"

"Ner, seriously, what are friends for?"

"R-right. … Sorry."

The act seemed to pacify the overprotective adult looming over them, though Mrs. Dillon still looked ready to give a stern lecture. Chances were it'd be a repeat of an earlier one that Ellie had likely heard in full.

Well, Inaya was still too wired to really give a crap.

"Welp, let's go check on that project, Ner," taking Neri by the hand, Inaya made her way past Mrs. Dillon and pulled Neri with her down the foyer, "Miss Evans isn't gonna give an extension this time."

Neri didn't protest and both managed to get past her mother, getting only a polite, "You're free to have some breakfast, if you like."

Neri's Mom couldn't cook for crap, but Inaya never said anything; she just declined every offer given.

Across from the door was what looked to be a large indoor porch with screened windows; it'd been a remnant of the early years, when Neri and her sister were little and their mother didn't want them to play outside, because of course she didn't. To the right-hand side of this porch, a doorway that led to the parents' room further indicated the insane level of vigilance the family matriarch had for her kids when they were trying to relax.

To the left was the kitchen and dining room, mostly done in shades of gold and cream, looking as homely as a kitchen could look in terms of color. The table was a small one, but there was enough room to make it bigger if necessary (and Mrs. Dillon believed in inviting friends and family over for holidays and special occasions).

Breakfast, of some sort, was indeed on the table. It looked edible. Sorta.

 _ **Please** tell me that's oatmeal, _Inaya decided that she wasn't hungry and instead pulled Neri along through the dining area and into the living room, out of maternal earshot, "I didn't think she'd be this calm, to be honest."

"She was up shortly after I was; she... she hadn't been able to sleep good last night," Neri sounded very guilty, "she kept checking up on me..."

"That's not your fault," Inaya took a turn and walked down the hall to where Neri's room was located.

"Still..."

Neri's room was right next to her older sisters', both of which were next to the bathroom; their parents had the luxury of having their own bathroom area attached to their room. Inaya always thought it was more than a bit pretentious, but to complain about it was to cause trouble for Neri and she didn't want that. At least her sister wasn't up...

The door to Neri's room wasn't shut, so Inaya could see where Ellie was pacing back and forth on the blue carpet, staring down at her cell phone with as though it were withholding answers.

Inaya let go of Neri's wrist to let her take the lead, Inaya's other hand had already made its way into her jacket pocket, fingers wrapping tightly around her own cell phone.

"Ellie?" Neri nudged her door open a bit more, so that both she and Inaya could slip in, "Inaya's here."

Looking up at her, Ellie's expression betrayed confusion and panic, even though her voice was steady when she spoke, "Did Mrs. D ask you any questions?"

"Well, duh," Inaya moved over to Neri's bed while aforementioned brunette shut her bedroom door.

Neri's room made a person feel as though they were underwater; light blue walls, pale blue ceiling, darker blue curtains drawn over the window, combining with dawn's light filtering through to give the whole room a watery hue. Her bed and dresser were the only things not colored or accented in blues; her comforter and pillowcase pure pink while her dresser (located right next to said bed) was simply made of wood.

She had to be the only girl that Inaya and Ellie both knew who still had a closet that wasn't built into the wall, and its cream-colored paint job allowed it to get lost in the underwater look whenever Neri drew her curtains. Which was almost always.

Neri didn't have a nightstand: she had a blue-hued vanity across from the foot of her bed, by the door. It had been her mother's idea of a birthday present. It didn't hold makeup or jewelry; it held a lamp, a couple knickknacks, and books.

Lots and lots and **lots** of books.

There were books in the **drawers** , for crying out loud.

"What did you tell her?" Ellie continued to press.

"Science project."

"...Yeah, that'll work."

Inaya raised an eyebrow, "Why? What did **you** tell her?"

"Neri did most of the talking for me," Ellie offered them both a smirk, "didn't keep her from asking questions, though."

"What else is new?" Inaya plopped down on Neri's bed, basking in the normalcy that was whining about Neri's Mom, "if the **Pope** came to visit, she'd ask questions-"

From the door, Neri cleared her throat... or attempted to. It sounded more like a stuttering cough.

"I... I know what the symbols mean."

Inaya sat up like a jack-in-the-box, eyes hardening, "About that..."

"Cool it, Innie."

"Ellie, don't tell me to _cool it_ when occult crap is involved."

"It's **not** occult, it's **astrology** ," Neri didn't shout, but she **did** stomp her foot, which made hardly any noise against the carpet, "I can prove it."

She went for the vanity and clicked on the lamp, banishing the underwater aura with artificial lightning. The book she sought out was already lying on the top, which made Inaya wonder if Neri had already shown Ellie, but she waited impatiently for Neri to open and flip through the semi-thick tome until she found what she was looking for.

"Here," she said, turning the book around under the light and showing it to her friends, "look."

Inaya took a step away from the bed for a better look; there was a picture of the Moon, big and bright and silvery-white against a pitch black background. Text covered one side while a set of smaller pictures were arranged along the other. The symbol that Neri was pointing to on that side looked like a crescent, rounded point facing down, both points facing up.

The same symbol from the top of the creepy cave circle.

"...That's..." Inaya didn't really know what to say, her lips moving a bit without forming sounds, so she looked over to Ellie for an opinion...and her jaw dropped instead, "wha… ?"

Ellie was holding up her cell phone backwards, showcasing the new magenta coloring and the **silver crescent symbol** emblazoned upon it, "Look familiar?"

Grasping for her jacket pocket again, Inaya nearly dropped her own phone as she pulled it out: the front was totally normal, same as it always was, but the casing had turned a fiery scarlet red and, on the back, had a symbol in shiny silver.

A circle with an arrow sticking out of the side, the point facing northeast.

"Holy shit," she nearly dropped her phone again as she looked from hers to Ellie's: the colors and symbols were different, but Inaya knew, she fucking **knew** , that they were connected. "what... Holy shit..."

"The... the symbol on Ellie's phone, on the back that is, is the symbol for the Earth's Moon in both astrology and astronomy," Neri explained, before turning the book so that she could flip through the pages again, "in alchemy, too, though not many people practice that anymore-"

"Alchemy? Wait. Like that stuff in Full Metal Alchemist?" Inaya's mind switched right back to occult rituals and voodoo dolls, "that's crazy cloning magic, right?"

" _Innie_ ," Ellie tried to keep her friend on the right track.

"Ah, no, not really," Neri found the page she was looking for, "regular alchemy was turning one substance into another, like metal, and each planet was associated with a metal. The Moon was silver..." She turned the book around to show its contents once again. "... and Mars was iron."

Inaya stared.

At the page. At the picture of the big red planet. At the _same fucking symbol on the back of her phone_.

 _No way,_ Inaya looked from her phone to the book to her phone again, _no way no way no way no way, this is bullshit-_

"Mercury is... is kind of a funny case," Neri's once again went flipping through the book: backwards this time, "see, there's a substance called mercury already, the stuff that you find in thermometers. Back then though, it, um, was called 'quicksilver', so that way no one would get confused." She turned the book to her friends again.

A small, meteor-studded planet presented itself on the page, surrounded by text and a symbol of similarity to the one on Inaya's phone: a circle, atop a plus sign, with what she thought looked like antennas forming a V-shape on top.

Circles and lines seemed to be the general theme with these markings.

…wait a minute.

Just as the gears began to finally start working in Inaya's head, she saw Neri slowly put the book down on her bed and reached into her pocket. Due to her father's habit of penny-pinching, Neri was always behind in terms of the latest technological trends, phones included. Her LG Leon LTE was clunky compared to the rest of her class, but she'd had it long enough to have become attached to it; Inaya wasn't sure if she **wanted** to switch to a newer model.

But the protective case she usually kept on it had changed: a cool, clear sky blue with an oh-so-familiar symbol printed in silver on the back, which she showed them with a meek expression on her face.

"I... I thought it was relevant... somehow," Neri offered, looking up at her friends, "the markings in the cave... some of them I recognized. From this book."

Inaya stared at Neri's phone. Then Ellie's. Then her own.

"And then, well... my phone had changed and I didn't know why or how... and Ellie believed I had the answers-"

"This is a good start, Neri," Ellie interrupted her shorter friend's rambling, tightening her grip on her phone, "I don't know what it means, but-"

"A good start?" Inaya looked up, eyes hardening, "a good start?" Her grip also tightened on her phone, threatening to crack it as her knuckles went white. "How the fuck is this _a good start_ , Ellie?"

Neri flinched at Inaya's hardening tone, clutching her phone to her chest while Ellie held out her phone.

"It's better than _nothing at all_ , Inaya. At least it's **something** ," Ellie argued, "a lead, a clue, a place to start looking-"

"Where? **Outer space**? What, you're saying we were abducted by **aliens** now?" her voice rising in volume, Inaya shoved her phone in Ellie's face, " **this** doesn't tell us **shit**! If that's the only clue we've got to being _magically teleported from halfway across town while in a coma_ , then I'd actually be happier if it were the Full Metal explanation!"

Neri had inched her way backwards at the outburst, recognizing Inaya's fiery temper igniting, with her confusion being the fuel.

"Our phones were normal before and now they're not," Ellie held up her free hand in a soothing manner, eyes meeting Inaya's, "besides that and sleeping for longer than normal, nothing seems out of place. We still have all our **parts** , those parts still **work** -"

"We could have **radiation poisoning** for all we know!"

"I... I don't think so..." Neri tried to interject, "we'd... we'd be throwing up by now if... if that were the case..."

"That's **not** the **point** , Ner," Inaya ground out, running her free hand through her dark hair, "we have **no clue** what happened yesterday and both you and Ellie think **outer space** is the key to unlocking the hours we lost. It could mean **fucking anything!** "

Neri bit her lip while Ellie took a step closer to Inaya, resting her hand on her shoulder, forcing the other girl to look her in the eye.

"I know you're freaking out; I am too. So is Neri," Ellie's eyes and voice were both gentle; Inaya **wanted** to be angry at her, she really did, but... "but **anything** is better than **nothing** at all. Any clue we can find is good enough-"

"Wait."

Ellie's mouth froze open as she and Inaya turned in tandem to see Neri, eyes wide, pointing at Ellie's altered phone. For a split second, Ellie thought that it was ready to self-destruct and took a step back.

"Ellie, you... you recorded us entering the cave," Neri's words stopped Ellie from flinging her phone in any random direction, "you recorded the circle. Maybe... maybe you recorded a clue."

Inaya gasped at the memory of Ellie activating her cell phone's recording feature mere minutes before they entered the crumpled-up cavern. Sure, she hadn't really been paying much attention – having expected some unseen disaster to leap out at any second – but she knew she'd seen Ellie hit 'Record' before all this crazy shit began.

"I... totally forgot about it..." Ellie slowly looked down to her phone, eyes wide.

"Holy shit," now it was Inaya's turn to point at the phone in question, "that's it. **That's** the answer! Ellie-"

But Ellie had already taken her Samsung in both hands, using her thumbs to access the menu that led to the Photo Album. Inaya's heart pounded in her ears as she moved beside Ellie while Neri moved closer to flank the other side. Three pairs of eyes were glued to the phone as Ellie opened the folder she was looking for and-

"..."

"... Ellie... where's the video?"

Opening her mouth, then closing it, all the color seemed to be draining from Ellie's face as she checked the folder again, then the Album, then double-checked in a flurry of thumbs. Neri's eyes were widening again, looking almost comical as they reached their size limit... except Inaya didn't feel like laughing.

"Ellie... where the **fuck** is the **video**?"

"I..." Ellie swallowed, trying to moisten her now dry mouth, going back into the Video Folder again to find a big fat zero, "... I know that... that I hit record-"

"I saw you do it, Ellie, so **where is it**?"

"This... no way... not possible..." Inaya had never heard Ellie's voice crack before; she'd always been the strong one, the calm one, the one level-headed enough to rein her in and get Neri to relax, get them both out of their shells. To hear her sound completely lost... "it should be here. Innie, Neri, **it** **should be here**. I forgot all about it, I **didn't** delete it."

Neri looked like a scared rabbit, clutching her own mutated phone to her chest as Ellie let her arms drop, confusion and the first signs of panic crossing her face. Inaya felt herself going pale too; that had been their one chance to understand what had gone on yesterday, where their lost hours had gone, how they got from the town border to their bedrooms. No one else seemed to think anything other than a stomachache or a heavy study session happened, no one was questioning where they'd been or how they got home under everyone's noses.

Even Mrs. Dillon, the Paranoia Queen of Pinion Bay, had been easily pacified.

Nothing made sense to Inaya anymore and she _**hated**_ it.

"... This is bullshit."

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 _Be sure to leave a review if you liked what you read. Don't be afraid to fave, either._

 _This chapter was hard to spit out; it went in a totally different direction the first time around, and then I realized that it didn't sound too good, hence the change. Next chapter is the turning point of the story, now that the mystery has been set up. Get ready!_


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